Rotorua

Saturday 5th Jan

Our RV for the trip

With Mum driving down to Charlotte and Mogg's farm which is somewhere 30 mins south of Rotorua (I'm not going to even try and spell it, but basically it is in the middle of no where). We stopped of in Cambridge for lunch, which is a nice little town in the heart of the NZ thoroughbred breeding area. Very pretty scenery, big green rollingb hills with studs and dairy farms scattered about everywhere.

We went straight to the local rodeo and had a great time watching the bull rodeo and later local sheep sheering competitions mixed up with drinking competions as added entertainment. After spending a little time at the bar Jamie and I got to meet our very own cowboy, Bruce who has invited us to stay with him down in Dunedin, although I doubt his intentions as he was trying to crack onto Lotty! Our kind hosts Charlotte, Mogg and Ali Tory took us back to their farm to continue our own drunken entertainment, a lot of rum was consumed!

Snug in the campervan

Sunday 6th Jan

We rushed down to the local rodeo for yet another days entertainment. This time it was Charlotte and Ali providing it, as they span round the dusty arena taking part in the barrell racing, Charlotte was a little more experienced than Ali, although they both did well. We spent the rest of the day with a group of Lotty & Mogg's friends watching the rodeo. The calf riding by the kids was great to watch, you could really see their enthuasism for the sport, hard little cookies they were aswell. I think our favourite part was the bareback horse rodeo, those cowboys must be mad, the horses are crazy - you could only watch in astonishment. It was great to see all the locals there enjoying it, everyone in their jeans, cowboy boots, belts and hats.

Then it was back to sample some local cuisine - all you can eat Pizza Hut! Later we retired to our accomodation for the night which was a trailer parked up outside Mogg's house.

Mon 7th Jan

Tourist day today - we headed off into Rotorua, with our fingers holding our noses to stop the rotten egg smell of the sulphur entering our noses. No luck though, even you clothes smell after spending an hour in the town. We went to Hells Gate geothermal area, where we endulged ourselves and had a mud bath followed by relaxing in the hot springs.

After all this relaxing we decided we needed something a little more energetic so we went up on the gondola to get a great view of Rotorua. With Jamie not quite so enthusiastic as me, we ventured on the sky swing, which was great fun (swung you 150km/h in 2 secs). Then very competitively we went for 2 runs down the luge, going straight onto the advanced run, of course - once again fantastic fun!